Summary

In which gift giving is the new Olympic sport.

There are lists and guides and endless articles of advice, but, shockingly, none of them cover what to get the person who you’re willing to die for. Who you almost died with. It’s something that’s just a little beyond the scope of what a tie or a vial of cologne can convey, and even if it could, Keith doubts it would be enough.

Summary

Victor watches his statue turn from stone to flesh; they both find out what it means to learn you can bleed.

Yuuri is fascinated by the hummingbirds that dart through the garden beside Victor’s cottage. Sitting beneath an Alder older than the house itself, Yuuri's eyes remain fixed on the web of branches overhead, watching the birds flit from blossom to blossom, only wholly visible when they pause.

Sometimes, Victor feels the same about Yuuri. As though Yuuri had been a blur in the back of his mind, an idea that he couldn’t quite shape until the idea had decided to pause and carve out a shape for itself. Victor could only catch Yuuri when he chose to be caught.

A particularly brave bird darts less than an arms length from Yuuri’s face, wings moving so quickly they appear still. Yuuri turns, a partial silhouette against the late afternoon sun behind him. “Do you think they too were once made of marble before they learned to fly?”

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Summary

A knock sounds — three sharp raps on the door. When Victor pries the door open, a huge black wolf sits at the door, dusted in fresh snow. The wolf begins to speak and the how and why of his request blurs together under the need mounting under Victor’s skin. All that lingers is the desperation, the isolation, the pleas that could have fallen from Victor’s very own lips. The years of spilling out his emotions in front of an audience, giving them to others for the sake of his art while feeling himself grow hollow, have caught up with him. He did what he could to escape.

But this. This is something different. This is more than just an escape. This is an adventure.

Summary

Lan WangJi’s pornography collection is just a few volumes, all well-loved. They smell of sandalwood, like Lan WangJi himself, and also the way that a small pornography collection that has sustained a man his entire life tends to smell. Wei WuXian is gripped by a tenderness that would seem impossible if he did not experience it at least ten times a day.

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Summary

“What happened?” Keith asks.

“Short answer? You fell through a wormhole and now you’re in the future,” Shiro answers.

Keith bites the inside of his cheek. It isn’t the strangest thing he’s ever heard in his life, but “weird shit” ends up being a high bar when you’re a Paladin of Voltron, traveling the universe and fighting the forces of evil. Still, it explains the way Shiro looks now— obviously older. It explains, somehow, how he might go from a hospital bed to the Atlas, from a hospital bed to Shiro's arms.

Summary

Before Kerberos, Shiro would never have guessed how wild Alteans would be about coffee. Then again, most of them had only ever had instant Nescafe before Black Lion. There’s not even a Dunkin up here to challenge them. Yet.

Keith turns up at 1130 and bypasses the line altogether. “Earthicano?”

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Summary

Shiro watches as Keith (Keith, different, with long hair in a braid, broader shoulders, and older face) looks around the room wildly, trying to place where he is. Then he closes his eyes and laughs, a soft, disbelieving chuckle. Shiro watches the tension ease from Keith’s shoulders.

“Right,” Keith whispers. “I remember this now.”

Or: Keith from the future ends up in the present. Shiro copes the only way he knows how-- by squashing all his feelings back down again.